-
Forum/Server Upgrade If you are reading this you have made it to the upgraded forum. Posts made on the old forum after 26th October 2023 have not been transfered. Everything else should be here. If you find any issues please let us know.
Hacked
- Thread starter Tamsin
- Start date
bunnyhuggger
Warren Veteran
he he he :lol: I already asked Tam that this morning, but I did it by pm cos I thought I was the only one who didn't know :wink:
luvabun said:Don't mean to be paranoid, but what info can they glean from a pc that they've hacked? I'm a real naive bunny when it comes to this stuff
Oh Jill, they can find out everything like, what colour your underwear is to what size bra you wear :wink: they even know when you are watching channel xxx :wink: :wink:
Well I'm not an expert but...
If you use the net you should make sure that your running anti-virus software and its kept uptodate (usually through weekly/fortnightly update downloads) you should also make sure you update windows (if thats what your running) when security updates are released, these are usually called service packs. They fix any problems that have been discovered. Doing this makes your own computer fairly safe.
Similar things need to be done with websites, the computers they are run on need to been kept uptodate with software upgrades and also the forum software needs to be updated if problems are found.
Currently as far as I can tell we're all up todate so I'm not sure how they managed to hack the forum.
If they managed to hack the forum database they potentially have any information you have entered in it. (Passwords are encrypted even I can't view those as administrator) but with this sort of site there aren't really interested in the data, its not like we have credit card details etc. stored.
So far they haven't got into the database anyway, they just effected the files. So this time for example they just replaced the index file with a message saying it had been hacked.
As to why they do it, well I guess they are lots of reasons. To prove they can, the prestige of being able to say to there friends I hacked x sites, for the challenge...
I have backups of the files and do fairly regular backups of the db as do our host so anything they break can be restored with at the most the loss of a few days posts. Its more of an annoyance than anything else.
Hope that answers a few questions
Tam
If you use the net you should make sure that your running anti-virus software and its kept uptodate (usually through weekly/fortnightly update downloads) you should also make sure you update windows (if thats what your running) when security updates are released, these are usually called service packs. They fix any problems that have been discovered. Doing this makes your own computer fairly safe.
Similar things need to be done with websites, the computers they are run on need to been kept uptodate with software upgrades and also the forum software needs to be updated if problems are found.
Currently as far as I can tell we're all up todate so I'm not sure how they managed to hack the forum.
If they managed to hack the forum database they potentially have any information you have entered in it. (Passwords are encrypted even I can't view those as administrator) but with this sort of site there aren't really interested in the data, its not like we have credit card details etc. stored.
So far they haven't got into the database anyway, they just effected the files. So this time for example they just replaced the index file with a message saying it had been hacked.
As to why they do it, well I guess they are lots of reasons. To prove they can, the prestige of being able to say to there friends I hacked x sites, for the challenge...
I have backups of the files and do fairly regular backups of the db as do our host so anything they break can be restored with at the most the loss of a few days posts. Its more of an annoyance than anything else.
Hope that answers a few questions
Tam
I just thought although this was from some time ago, I can give you a couple of links to sites that supply FOC antivirus and firewall software.
Anti Virus software tends to stop or at least minimise any dubious files that people try to load onto your machine which can log key strokes or collate information you have on your system.
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php
This is an Anti Virus software that I use and it has been great.
Firewalls, the best way of looking at these is to think of them like your car. if you leave your car unlocked at the side of the road it is open to all sorts of abuse. the first thing you can do is to lock the doors. this is what the XP built in firewal does. but the ideal thing is to put your car in a garage (IE hide it) to do this you need to load some thing like zonealarm.
http://www.zonealarm.com
This again is a free software and is great for new users. If you are using XP firewall or another firewall do not run 2 at once, this is likly to upset your internet connection.
Finaly spyware, its a hyped up word for a vast number of small files that are often loaded onto your machine without you knowing, usualy from a website or software disk that wants to do market research or similar often these run in the background on your machine and slowly take up resource and slow every thing down. they are often simple cookies or registry files.
To find out what you have got on your system and to purge them from your system some thing like ad-aware or spy-bot.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ is ad-aware and the one I use.
You will have a vast number of these little blighters on your system the first time you run this, do not panic, just use the software to remove them and all will be well.
I hope this helps some of you.
Anti Virus software tends to stop or at least minimise any dubious files that people try to load onto your machine which can log key strokes or collate information you have on your system.
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php
This is an Anti Virus software that I use and it has been great.
Firewalls, the best way of looking at these is to think of them like your car. if you leave your car unlocked at the side of the road it is open to all sorts of abuse. the first thing you can do is to lock the doors. this is what the XP built in firewal does. but the ideal thing is to put your car in a garage (IE hide it) to do this you need to load some thing like zonealarm.
http://www.zonealarm.com
This again is a free software and is great for new users. If you are using XP firewall or another firewall do not run 2 at once, this is likly to upset your internet connection.
Finaly spyware, its a hyped up word for a vast number of small files that are often loaded onto your machine without you knowing, usualy from a website or software disk that wants to do market research or similar often these run in the background on your machine and slowly take up resource and slow every thing down. they are often simple cookies or registry files.
To find out what you have got on your system and to purge them from your system some thing like ad-aware or spy-bot.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ is ad-aware and the one I use.
You will have a vast number of these little blighters on your system the first time you run this, do not panic, just use the software to remove them and all will be well.
I hope this helps some of you.
Could i suggest an upgrade to ver 2.0.11 as there is huge bugs in ver .10 and below. One of our sites got hit 8 times before christmas this a car owners site. Also theres a very good security mod for phpbb if you would like the url send us a pm.
Theres currently a lot of worms that attack phpbb using search engines.
Once the door is opened they will continue to use a back door they place on your site. So the only option is a total upgrade. We have had to do this with pajerouk.co.uk and as a precaution we removed phpbb from our bunny site and moved to a different cms.
Theres currently a lot of worms that attack phpbb using search engines.
Once the door is opened they will continue to use a back door they place on your site. So the only option is a total upgrade. We have had to do this with pajerouk.co.uk and as a precaution we removed phpbb from our bunny site and moved to a different cms.
hutchley_eats_hamsters
Warren Scout
Hackers
I reckon it's an international team of "black ops" bunnies.
They want to see what all the rabbiting on is about!
Ps. My bunny definitley has an alibi for the time in question.
I reckon it's an international team of "black ops" bunnies.
They want to see what all the rabbiting on is about!
Ps. My bunny definitley has an alibi for the time in question.
